John Cale is the artist I have been seeing live regularly for longer than anyone else, over 41 years now, this was I think the fourth time I've seen him at the Royal Festival Hall, but it may be more times than that. This show is part of his current extensive European Poptical Illusion tour playing an impressive number of shows for an 83 year old performer, for this show I was sat in almost my favourite seat in the Royal Festival hall in the front row of the upper section just to the right of the sound desk.
First on was singer songwriter Tom McRae who played solo and opened his set with the slow pained sound of Lately Is All I Know a bitter heartbroken song of the dumped, that had some mewling high keening vocals and strained guitar tones. For The Restless continued the theme of the dumped bloke claiming to be faithless rather than admitting he can't stay in a relationship.
He then went full on toxic pleading on Let Me Grow Old With You that sounded more like a threat than a romantic idyll, then not as possibly out of order as You Cut Her Hair with accusatory lyrics, it was so slow it was hard to stay interested. Tom made clear he knew he was dour and downbeat before telling a story of how he met David Bowie and John Cale in New York after he played one of his first shows there 25 years ago by way of intro to the far less interesting A & B Song.
Wild Love rarely takes place at such a stately slow pace as this song was played at, while he switched to an electric guitar, he closed with what I guess was Time To Kill The King but may be Walking To Hawaii either way he isn't in my top 10 John Cale support acts.
After the break John Cale and his current band Featuring Dustin Boyer as Lead guitarist ambled onstage, for the opening song Shark Shark John played guitar, they were quickly sounding really great, even if the dynamic range of Cale's bands has shrunk a little bit over the passing years, his vocals sounded great.
He then went and sat at his keyboards and synths for the rest of the set, they went into an amazing long version of Captain Hook, Dustin was doing his best to pull every ounce of angst from his guitar, he battled with Cale's swathes of keyboards. Endless Plain Of Fortune had a few twists from how it used to be performed, slightly darker and with the odd piano run added in it was masterful re-invention of a much-loved classic.
John then introduced Heartbreak Hotel before they slowly deconstructed it Alex's drums anchoring things down, the song became ever more menacing. He brought things back up to date with Setting Fires that worked well with the images on the backdrop behind the band. Wales & Davis already sounds like a live classic, this version was poppy and came close to inviting a sing along to the chorus.
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They went back to the early 80's for Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores one of his more unlikely hits, this was less frosty than some recent tours and certainly less fraught than the show at the Roundhouse was. It was great to hear My Maria a song he never seemed to play live until a few years ago it really opened out and had lots of emotion in it.
He then turned Set Me Free from Walking On Locusts into a great live tune making it sound more like it was on Wrong Way Up, bringing a nice fresh approach. Possibly the most radically reworked song of the set was Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night it worked well in the band setting, stripped of the orchestration the barest hints of which came through Cales's synths and keyboards, while he intoned Dylan Thomas' poem once more.
Company Commander from Poptical Illusion seemed to hint at global strife in an oblique way, Dustin's guitar became more fraught against Joey's bass, he wrung every note he could out of it. Out Your Window has a sly hook to it, making this an almost infectious song suggesting you need to jump out of a window.
John has done his best to make Nico's Frozen Warnings his own, this version had plenty of claustrophobia alongside some strident piano and Dustin's intense guitar.
They then stretched out Barracuda adding layers of darkness and hints of imminent danger before John introduced the band, thanked us all and they closed with Villa Albani a song I never thought would still be in the live set 41 years after I first heard him play it live, it has grown over the years and nowadays is almost a commentary on the imperial mindset of American politicians. They left the stage to a huge round of applause that carried on for a good few minutes at the end of a brilliant near two-hour long set.
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